Perspective
Read a poem written by Cantor Joseph Cysner about his experience during one of the first organized deportations of Jewish residents. Students will gain an understanding of the significance memory has on teaching history.
Forced deportations of Jewish residents from Nazi Germany was one of many attempts by Hitler to rid Germany of their “Jewish problem.”
Prepare students what they will be reading the work of a victim.
Elie Wiesel famously speaks of the importance of memory and writing down one’s story. Offer the following quote from Wiesel to your students:
“History is a bridge. We are naturally afraid of our memories. We try to forget, and in truth, some things we must forget a little bit, simply in order to function. And yet…if we truly allow ourselves to forget, history may well return to us.”
Give students a few minutes to consider the quote before asking them what it means to them. Specifically pursue the question of how history is a bridge?
Read through the poem The Memoirs of Cantor Joseph Cysner edited and published by Key Documents of German-Jewish History.
Before moving on to the Output section, ask students what they think is happening during the poem, what is the context?
Have students pick a line or two from this poem that resonates the most with them. Tell students to write down the answers to the questions below on a piece of paper as they focus on their selection.
Give students 1o minutes to create their answers; then ask for volunteers to share what they wrote down.
Finally, return to the quote by Elie Wiesel about memory.
How does the existence of this poem bridge the reader to history?
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Students will learn about the rise of the Nazi party. The resource will have them read through excerpts from the Nazi Party’s political party platform. Discussion will evolve into the danger nationalism poses in creating an “us versus them” narrative.
Hitler sought to push his political agenda to strengthen Germany as a nation- at the cost of other cultures and races in the state.
Begin by asking students, What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism?
After giving them a few minutes to come up with their definitions, you can share the official definitions provided by Dictionary.com.
Patriotism: Devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.
Nationalism: The policy of doctrine asserting the interests of one’s own nation viewed as separate from the interests of other nations or the common interests of all nations. In short, nationalism is a kind of excessive, aggressive patriotism.
Explain to students that political parties and candidates create platforms that help translate their ideas and goals into actions. Tell the class that during this lesson they will read through the National Socialist German Workers’ Party Platform to read through provisions that Hitler proposed to the party.
Direct students to the Facing History and Ourselves source titled, National Socialist German Workers’ Party Platform and read through it together as a class. After you go through the platform, ask the class what their initial thoughts are. Does any one provision stick out to them?
Ask students to get together in small groups of two or three. Give 10-15 minutes for groups to go over the following questions:
Read the quote below by a German Nationalist in 1810 to help you answer the remaining questions:
“A state without a Volk (a people who share a language and culture) is nothing, a soulless artifice; a Volk without a state is nothing, a bodiless airy phantom, like the Gypsies* and the Jews. Only state and Volk together could forma Reich (great empire), and such a Reich cannot be preserved without Volkdom.” -Taken from Facing History and Ourselves.
Go over the questions as a class, collect answers to the main themes to use in future discussions about nationalism and propaganda.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Read through excerpts from some of Adolf Hitler’s written works from before and after his appointment as chancellor. Students will gain an understanding for the rhetoric used and how it was put into the context of a problem to be solved in Germany.
Hitler’s desire for “racial purity” and the removal of Jews from Germany was at the core of his actions.
Ask students what they know about Adolf Hitler. Has anyone heard of any of the books he has written?
Explain to students that the first two excerpts come from Hitler’s books, both published before he took office. The first, Mein Kampf, was written while he was in jail after a failed attempt to overthrow the government. His second book, Zweites Buch, was written on his thoughts on foreign policy but was not published in his lifetime. The last came from a speech he gave in the Reichstag after he became chancellor.
Direct students to the document, Nazi Ideology from Echoes & Reflections to read excerpts from three of Hitler’s writings. Prep students by informing them that much of what they will read of Hitler’s words are disturbing and hateful. We are reading them to learn how destructive and wrong these beliefs are.
Have students pair up in groups of two to try to understand and rewrite each excerpt. Give students 10-12 minutes for these rewrites.
Ask the students to share their summaries with the class. Did everyone get the same general take-aways for each one? Open the class into a discussion asking the following questions:
Record some of the students’ answers to be used in other discussions about propaganda and Nazi ideology.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Gain an understanding of the depth of which Hitler and Joseph Goebbels were able to indoctrinate the general public with their ideology. This reading will help students understand the reach of propaganda during Nazi Germany and how this transformed the nation.
Hitler and the Nazi party used propaganda to sway public opinion. They were able to create different messages for various audiences.
Ask students to define propaganda. Discuss ways that propaganda is used today.
Go to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s online exhibit about propaganda.
Explore the different timeline sections and look through the themes. Choose one or more to explore with your students. Read through some of the subsections under these themes and click through the attached propaganda associated with it.
For example, if you click on the ‘1918-1933: Democracy‘ section and read the introduction and the subsection, ‘Hitler and Nazi Propaganda.’ Then scroll down to the subsection titled, ‘Creating a Public Image‘ and read and look through the images connected to it.
Divide the students into groups of 3 – 4 students Provide each with a current print advertisement or political ad. They can focus on these questions to present and discuss:
Come back together as a class and ask students: How do these messages shape a person’s perspective? How does this help to explain the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda?
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
Explore an interactive map and tap into first-hand accounts from various sites of massacre across Eastern Europe, a space that came to be known as the Bloodlands.
Mobile killing squads massacred over one million Jews in the first years of the war and were aided by the neighbors of the victims.
Explain to students that one of the tactics used by the Nazi regime in their attempt to mass murder was the use of Mobile Killing Units, or the Einsatzgruppen. Under the cover of war, these groups marched into territories where they targeted and killed over half a million people, primarily Jews.
Navigate the Yahud-in Unum map. The map is dotted with red and blue marks, each indicating a site of a massacre committed by the SS. It is recommended that you and your class familiarize yourself with navigating the map–zooming, dragging, clicking in and out of the sites.
Then, select a single country to focus on as a class. Centering attention in this way helps generate a sense of greater accomplishment at the end of the lesson.
After selecting a country, refer to the map of SS movements. Note which SS groups would have been in the country and when–how long has this community been suffering from war? What might be their level of fear, hunger, or desperation when the SS show up?
Now, divide the class into groups of 3.
Each group must:
As the groups present, collect their answers to the major questions. These lessons can then become touchstones for continued discussion and inquiry about the Holocaust, about intolerance and about exploring the past.
This lesson meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.
